Mathilde Collin (born 20 April 1989) is a French business leader, CEO of the Californian company Front which she created in 2013, which became a unicorn in 2022.

Mathilde Collin
Born (1989-04-20) 20 April 1989 (age 35)
Alma materHEC Paris
OccupationCEO of Front

Biography

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Education

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Mathilde Marie Anne-Sophie Collin was born in France on 20 April 1989. Her father is an engineer, her mother a management assistant; her grandparents are farmers on one side and masons on the other.[1]

After a preparatory class at the private Lycée Notre-Dame-du-Grandchamp in Versailles, she was admitted to all the schools to which she applied. She chose HEC Paris, major entrepreneurship.[2] During a gap year, she discovered the startup Shopcade where she really liked the atmosphere and the financial management of Bouygues where she didn't like it.[3]

She marries a fiction writer, she is the mother of two children born in January 2023.[4]

She plays tennis, soccer, climbs and bikes.[5]

Career

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After leaving HEC in 2012, she worked for 9 months at Concord, a contract management startup.[6]

In 2013, with the financial support and advice of entrepreneur Thibaud Elzière, she created Front in Paris with Laurent Perrin, who takes care of technology. Front markets SaaS software that brings together in a single file all messages sent/received from a correspondent, regardless of the mode of transmission (email, SMS, WhatsApp, etc.). The product interfaces with different messaging tools such as Slack, Asana or Salesforce. The boss presents it first as a new email software, then later as “a communication platform with the customer”.[7]

The company had five employees when Mathilde Collin decided to relocate it to San Francisco to take advantage of Y Combinator. Following a Series D fundraising in 2022, it is valued at $1.7 billion, giving it unicorn status.[8]

She seeks to achieve a good working atmosphere in her company, which is ranked by Fortune as the 13th best place to work in a mid-sized company in 2022. On this subject, she even says that the search for employee happiness motivated her to create a company.[9]

She participates in the financing of other startups, including Loom, Inc. in 2020.[10]

References

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  1. ^ à 09h30, Par Robin Korda Le 20 juillet 2023; À 10h33, Modifié Le 23 Juillet 2023 (2023-07-20). "Comment Mathilde, la bonne élève de banlieue, a monté une start-up à plus d'un milliard d'euros". leparisien.fr (in French). Retrieved 2024-08-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ "Front, la nouvelle licorne française HEC Paris". HEC Paris (in French). 2022-07-12. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  3. ^ Mathilde Collin, cofondatrice de Front et coqueluche des Américains
  4. ^ Garaude, Pauline (2022-07-05). "Mathilde Collin, CEO humaine et combative à la tête de la licorne américaine Front". Maddyness - Le média pour comprendre l'économie de demain (in French). Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  5. ^ "Mathilde Collin, la Française qui révolutionne les mails de la Silicon Valley". La Croix (in French). 2021-04-02. ISSN 0242-6056. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  6. ^ Concord, le « Salesforce » de la gestion de contrats
  7. ^ "Dans les pas de Mathilde Collin, CEO de Front, la "licorne" française qui invente le futur de l'e-mail". Madame Figaro (in French). 2023-01-24. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  8. ^ "Mathilde Collin, la Française qui bouscule la Silicon Valley". Les Echos (in French). 2021-12-01. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  9. ^ "Front devient une licorne et part à la chasse de plus gros clients". Les Echos (in French). 2022-06-29. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  10. ^ Mathilde Collin, la PDG qui veut être à la pointe de l'équilibre entre travail et vie privée